


Twist (and Shout)

by Argyle



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Beach Sex, M/M, Multi, Semipublic Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-23
Updated: 2011-09-23
Packaged: 2017-10-23 23:56:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For once, Charles chooses the motel. The drive through Arizona is a long one, and even the sight of the hills surrounding Los Angeles can't tease him from weariness. There's only one thing for it: an ocean view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twist (and Shout)

For once, Charles chooses the motel. He's quite adamant -- for the last fortnight, they'd leapfrogged from one dodgy two-leveler to another, none any more or less scenic than the last. But the drive through Arizona had been a long one, and even the eventual sight of the hills surrounding Los Angeles can't tease him from weariness. There's only one thing for it: an ocean view.

Erik scoffs at this, even as they settle into their room. "I don't see how that will make a difference," he says. "Our only _need_ is greater success. It's been a week since we sent Darwin back to Virginia. We're wasting time."

"I know," Charles sighs. Of course it shouldn't come as a surprise that they'd be turned down more than not. They're in effect asking these mutants to make themselves known to the CIA, and if Charles is honest, even he can't argue that everyone involved has their best interest in mind. There's only the assurance that Charles will do everything in his power to protect them. That they'll learn and train and no longer be alone.

But for many, that isn't enough.

Even Erik has recently come close to walking away. Charles hasn't broken his vow not to look into Erik's thoughts, but there are some things he can't ignore: Erik fights with himself daily, caught between the wish to have this thing work and the need to continue his search for Shaw. He's spent so many years devoted to the latter that to spend time at anything else seems foreign. It's all Charles can do to placate him.

"Trust me, my friend. If there was a way--"

"What's stopping you from convincing them? All it would take is a seed, and no doubt they'd think it was their idea all along."

"Erik, don't. You know damn well I won't," says Charles, "and I haven't the energy to argue it now."

"Two recruits in three weeks? And half of the mutants we've met have been useless. What would it mean to us to obtain someone who can hard-boil an egg in her hand?"

Charles slumps back onto the bed, rubbing his hands across his face. "That was just a parlor trick, like bending a spoon would be for you. I'm certain Miss Wilson has the potential to do so much more."

"I don't work in potentials," Erik says. Then he takes up his shaving kit and retreats to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Ocean view be damned: Charles can't stay in here. He waits until he hears the shower start before he calls, "I'm going to get some air," and is out the door before Erik, had he even been listening, can reply. He's fairly sure he wouldn't have wanted to hear him anyway.

At least it's a nice night. There's a light breeze -- saltless, unlike what he's used to, but it's warm enough that Charles takes his blazer off as soon as he's begun down the motel staircase. As advertised, the beach entrance is less than a block away. He toes his shoes off, then removes his socks, and leaves them tucked together by some tufts of dune grass at the beachhead. Immediately, he sighs at the cool, soft feel of the beach between his toes as he walks to the water's edge.

The tide is coming in. Here and there stones and sharp pieces of shell lay freshly deposited on the sand, and as he walks he keeps an eye open for anything interesting. Perhaps a bit of smoothed glass, something inconspicuous and easy to pocket. It isn't that he's taken to collecting such things before, but somehow this seems significant: the hunt for mutants has brought him clear to the other side of the country. A long way, yes. And he still has a long way to go.

Charles looks above him and wonders whether if the haze parted, the stars would be very bright.

For a while, maybe thirty minutes, he wanders down the coast. It's late enough that the beach is all but deserted, and while he senses the great swath of population inland, the physical solitude and the sound of the waves are enough to lighten his mood a little. His thoughts certainly feel clearer--

All right. Of course Erik has every reason to question what they're doing. But as mad a thing as it seems, Charles knows that it's also _right_. Mutants must band together, regardless of their disparate histories, if there's to be any hope for acceptance in the future.

Charles knows he must keep Erik by his side. He's too powerful a force to lose.

And in a flash, the image of him rises in Charles' mind: Erik as he was that first night, hell-bent on taking Shaw down, his body throwing Charles off even as his mind gulped him down, as greedy a presence as Charles had ever known. Erik, in Charles' room on base, and every other nameless bed they've shared since then, all but rending Charles apart, and Charles so very glad of it.

When Charles sees Erik there before him then, he reasons it must be nothing more than a phantom conjured by his own exhaustion. But there's a fullness there, as though Erik is glad to see him. Glad they're both there.

And of course it's Erik himself, barefoot as Charles is, in khakis and a neat white polo. Even in the middle of the night, he looks every bit like he was made for the place.

"What are you doing here?" Charles ventures.

Erik's mouth quirks round the corners. "You really think you can escape me, Xavier?"

 _Never_ , Charles means to say. It comes out as, "About before-- It's only. It's been a long day."

"I know," says Erik. "May I join you?"

"May as well start back," Charles says. For a while, they walk in companionable silence -- Charles is grateful that Erik's temper has quieted as much as his own -- and then Charles sets his blazer on his other arm, using the free one to touch the inside of Erik's wrist, just briefly.

"Your hand's cold!" Erik takes the offending appendage between his palms, and when Charles begins to pull away, embarrassed, he says, "Either pocket them or let me."

"Fine," Charles sniffs. "Anyway, d'you mind if we stop a while? My legs are getting tired."

"Our time on the road hasn't left you soft, has it?" Erik asks, but he follows Charles' lead just the same, and after a moment they're sitting side-by-side on Charles' outstretched jacket. Erik takes Charles' hand again and rubs over his knuckles.

Charles smiles, savoring the closeness. "Look," he says, quietly. "We needn't make this about-- what we _do_. But if you think we aren't doing the right thing here, you've a right to say so. You're as much a brain behind this operation as I am."

"What makes you think I'm not just using you to get closer to Shaw?"

"I can read your mind, Erik," Charles chides. "Don't forget it."

"I haven't," says Erik. His face is very close to Charles' now -- Charles can't help but close the distance.

It's like a song they know between them. Charles works his tongue over Erik's lips, teasing them apart, grazing his teeth, and when Erik opens his mouth for him, Charles shivers with the simple thrill of it. Erik's hand is at Charles' nape; he cards through the fine hairs there, then shifts so that his long fingers stretch round the back of Charles' head.

Breathless, Charles unbuttons Erik's collar. "Well," he says, not really knowing why, his breath ghosting over Erik's throat, "I suppose we're both overfond of danger."

"You just think you're the one who's right." Erik's palm drops to Charles' groin. The heel of his hand presses against Charles' erection, and Charles gasps, catching Erik's eye.

"No one can see us," he says.

Erik is puzzled, but accepting. Willing. "You can do that?"

//Yes.// Charles lets Erik push him down so that he's stretched back on his jacket -- or almost: he feels the unmistakable touch of sand behind his head, which means he'll be picking it from his scalp for days to come.

But he can't bring himself to care. Not when Erik's fingers work at Charles' waist button, then his zip, like they are now. Charles opens Erik's trousers in turn, parts his briefs until he can take Erik's length in his hand. Even in the gloom, Charles can see the flushed hue of him; there's already precome at the tip, and he rubs the pad of his thumb over it, loving the way it makes Erik's breath hitch.

Charles knows that's something he never wants to get used to.

Then Charles spits into his palm, and in one jagged movement takes both their cocks together. Erik's forehead presses against Charles' cheek, and his body is almost fully aligned with Charles' when Charles begins to stroke, slowly at first, teasingly, until Erik's hips grind forward and he grunts, "Charles-- Move, damn you."

Wrenching his feet flat and his toes into the sand, Charles does. It's-- Well, it's bloody _marvelous_. But Charles needs more. He raises his free hand to Erik's face.

Before he can speak, Erik's breath puffs against Charles' skin, "Do it."

//Tell me, Erik.//

//I want you, inside.//

Charles lets his mind tumble with Erik's, twine with it, until every pleasure, each movement and pressure, belongs to neither of them but truly _both_. It never lasts long after that, and this time is no exception. Charles comes, and Erik does too, panting against Charles' chest.

After a long moment, Erik collapses to the side. Charles pulls out a handkerchief to wipe himself off, and as he's doing the same for Erik, and tucking them both back up, Erik presses a kiss to the side of Charles' temple. "Let's go back."

"I gather we've given the hot water in our room enough time to replenish?" Charles asks.

"There's only one way to find out."

"Ah. Would that require standing, and god forbid, _walking_?"

Erik smiles. "Unless you thought to pack a set of bicycles."

"Not as such," Charles admits. He lets his head fall back again, and for several minutes, he stares straight upward to the blank sky, taking in only the movement of Erik's breath and the crash of the waves against the shore. Idly, he traces a finger against the ground beside him. "I never got the hang of sand."

"Hmm."

"It's just rather... loose. And crumbly."

"You're talking nonsense, Charles. To think you'd be one to have his brains squashed after a shag..."

"Yes," Charles says. But brains or no, he has mind enough to observe.

Quite slowly, Erik leans over, stretching a hand across an untrod on stretch of beach. He takes a breath. And then the sand begins to tremble. "Watch." Like it's nothing -- and of course it isn't, not for Erik -- he raises a penny from an inch-wide crack. "You never know what sort of treasures you'll find."

"May I see it?"

Erik drops the penny into Charles' outstretched palm, and Charles runs his thumb over the scratched, faintly tarnished Lincoln profile. 1962. Likely it dropped from a purse and was left behind, forgotten. Or perhaps the sea burbled it up from a place unknown, soon after its minting.

But there's no knowing these things.

Charles pockets it before Erik can take it back.


End file.
